


elseworlds

by descartes



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, unfinished works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/descartes/pseuds/descartes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>david and david, across the multiverse</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. david is a mermaid and it's not an au

**Author's Note:**

> bits & pieces collected from LJ and my hard drive.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> seriously, it's not an au.

Archie keeps insisting that David go out already, and worries loudly that staying indoors would be horrible for David's career and that if people found out that Archie was the reason why David couldn't leave his house to be with his fans and make chart-topping records and be sexy for cameras, David's fans would kill him (Archie, not David.) He makes flapping motions with his hands and looks up at Cook and tells him he'll be fine, he won't be going anywhere, it's ok to leave him at home.

David, on the other hand, doesn't think that leaving a seventeen year old alone in the bathtub of an older guy is acceptable anywhere, even in Los Angeles.

"Besides, what if you suddenly have a life-or-death craving for pizza, huh? You can't crawl to the door when the delivery guy comes ringing, and even if you can, doesn't mean I'd let you," he tells Archie, kneeling on a towel on a dry area of the bathroom floor. "Or what if you want to wear a different shirt? I know you, you'll go get it and when I come home, you're flopping about in my closet like a dessicated husk of sadness."

But his compellingly logical arguments, even the one where the neighborhood would have a sudden water crisis and Archie would no longer have fresh water and drown under his own filth, were powerless under the combined forces of Archie's dismissive eye-rolls and David's own pesky contractual obligations. He grimly stomps around the house paparazzi-proofing every window and door, makes a stack of sandwiches as tall as his head and around twenty liters of juice for Archie to eat, sticks an iPod inside two Ziploc bags and carefully programs Archie's cellphone to have David as his #1 on speed-dial.

Archie entertains him with a medley of Disney songs.

Eyeing the hastily-assembled bunker he cobbled around the Archie and the bathtub, David wonders why he didn't take up the architect's offer to have a mini-fridge and a home entertainment system built in his bathroom. Oh, right, because he didn't think he would have a teenage mermaid with a short attention span and a phobia of his own nipples staying in it. What the fuck.

*

David keeps two fingers on his cellphone at all times, ready to whip it out at the first vibration. It's in silent mode, which it really shouldn't have been, but when someone who wasn't Archie called, the cellphone broke out in a shrill rendition of Barbie Girl and caused one of the A&R people to spill coffee all over some important contracts. David had made a mental note to never leave his cellphone unattended whenever he went over to Mike's.

The RCA reps keep eying him warily, but they're too well-trained to ask a rockstar why he's got one hand in his pocket and keeps shifting around in his plush leather seat, and David's too busy suppressing the horrific Archie-related images his mind keeps conjuring to explain it to them.

Finally, after what seems like hours of discussion on the budget for Light On's music video, a break is called and David bolts for the nearest bathroom, almost tripping over the carpet in his haste.

The head of his promotions team turns to at David's publicist. "New girl?"

"Madly in love, probably," she replies. "Explains the three-day radio silence."

Promo nods and makes notes in their BlackBerries. A few words in the right ears, and the blogs'll be lighting up over Cook's budding new romance. Unnamed, of course. It's a good tease.

*

"Oh my gosh, isn't it the most goshdarned thing you've ever seen?" Dave Ray asks, and David stares at him disbelievingly, because if there was a good time to break out all the juicy four-letter words, this? This would be a really fucking good time.

Maybe it's a Mormon thing, because while Dave is very quietly freaking David out as he stands at David's elbow, his wife and Jeff Archuleta are very calmly hovering around Archie, who's curled up inside Brooke's house's guest bathroom with the tip of his long, gleaming tail curling over the lip of the cramped bathtub.

A tail. David Archuleta has a tail, a fish-tail where his legs – and David assures himself, he had legs back then, I'm sure of it – used to be. Archie is a mermaid. Merman. Merperson.

David takes a deep breath, pointedly ignores the part of his brain that wants to get very, very drunk very, very fast and says in as normal a voice as he possibly can, "So this was why you asked about the size of my Jacuzzi."

Brooke squints at him and says, "You're going nuts right now."

"Yes." Understatement of the goddamn century.

Jeff stands up from crouching by Archie's head, wincing a little as his knees crack. When he moves, David could see Archie, who's— huh, asleep, head propped up with a small rubber pillow against the wall and damp hair plastered to his forehead. Jeff tells David, "We weren't actually going to tell anybody, except Brooke's bathtub is small – not meaning any disrespect for you or Dave, of course – and Brooke mentioned that you had bought a house with a pool."

"So, we were wondering if Archie could stay with you until this gets settled," Brooke finishes, standing in front of him and holding onto his arm with a cool hand.

Before David can do anything sane like say "oh my god no" or "oh my god HELL no" or demand someone share the good drugs they've been smoking, he catches a glimpse of shimmering blue-green scales under water and sunlight and what comes out of his mouth is a weak, "No problem."


	2. it knows not how it sounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> five times david archuleta outs himself, and one time he doesn't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains David Archuleta/Joe Jonas!

**1\. father figure**

"David," his dad says, and he's using his "we have to talk" voice, the one he uses when Daniel emerges from the basement at three a.m. with bleeding fingers and a guitar, so David puts down his cellphone on the bedspread and turns to his dad attentively.

"David," his dad says, "I know you're in an unusual position right now, having to deal with all sorts of new things and new feelings, and you can tell me anything, okay? I'll always be here for you."

David squirms, just a little bit, because his dad is looking at him, and he's not wearing a hat, so there's nothing to, like, dilute the intensity in his eyes, and he says,

"but that was Cook's fault!"

even though he shouldn't blame other people for his own mistakes and stuff.

His dad frowns. "What?"

"Huh?"

Wow, he didn't know his dad can make those shapes with his eyebrows. "What are you saying?" his dad asks, looking pained, which is unfair because he started the conversation, not David.

David cracks his knuckles nervously. "Um, that time when we had to do that interview and I laughed and knocked my mic into the glass of water? I already apologized to the director and crew and everybody."

"What? No, not that one. I mean, do you have anything you want to tell me, like something important and new about yourself that you may have recently discovered and have been hiding from me?"

David thinks about it. He's guessing his dad doesn't mean the way he almost cries in relief every time he changes out of the clothes the stylists make him wear into actual normal clothes that don't cling to places that cloth really shouldn't cling to and make people on the Internet go crazy.

Then his dad tells him things, starting with a conversation, well, several, that he had with David's mom over the last few months, then moving into something about honesty and being true to yourself and exploring within certain boundaries, and there are what David's sure are metaphors, except he's never been good at those. Whatever his dad's telling him, it must be important, because he's stopped looking directly at David and his ears are pink. David's cheeks blush in sympathy.

Finally, his dad sighs loudly, mutters about not buying self-help books again and says, "David, it's all right to have feelings for other boys."

David nods, because he likes having feelings for everybody. Good feelings. Bad ones make his stomach hurt.

His dad sighs, louder this time. "Romantic feelings."

Oh. "Oh," David says, while thinking, Oh. Okay. That makes sense. "Um, so the metaphor about the closet was really a metaphor about the closet?" 

That's how David comes out to himself. And to his dad, but David can't figure out if it counts if his dad outs David to himself. There's a lot of awkwardness – not just the plain, ordinary, everyday awkwardness, but a special kind of one, the one where he can't believe his mom and dad talked about him, um, doing things, things like kissing and touching with other people and are telling him to be careful and are offering to buy him books, with pictures, for knowledge.

David is so freaked out that he doesn't bother changing into sleep-clothes before going to bed, horrified at how his body is suddenly a terrifying monster full of nasty surprises, which sucks, because he doesn't need this on top of everything else.

But the next day, his dad greets him good morning with his usual smile and his mom's sent him her usual good-morning-sweetie text message from Utah, and he's still the same and and sings the same and likes toast the same way, except maybe when the right kind of boy comes along and offers to share a plate, David wouldn't mind, so it's all good.

 

**2\. friends don't let friends**

He means to tell Jason that he wants to stop at an ice cream place before they head back to the hotel, but what comes out of his mouth is, "I like guys."

Jason blinks, nodding slowly. "All right."

"That's— you're not gonna, it's okay?"

"Yeah." 

David turns this over in his head and decides that (a) he's really glad that he had used his indoor voice, and (b) maybe Jason is, like, drunk.

As if being a totally sneaky mind reader, Jason claps him on the back and says, "Dude, I'm not drunk. If you're gay, then you are. It's cool, we're cool, unless you haven't told anybody else yet—"

"No!"

"—then, yeah, 'm proud of you and everything. I won't tell anybody, I promise." Jason mimes zipping his mouth and locking it, and David laughs out loud, causing a group of girls crossing the street to look at them and, oh no, one of them is wearing a Dreadheads shirt.

Later, while he tells one of the girls to have fun at tonight's show, he glances at Jason, who notices and, grinning widely, pulls David closer to his side, to the squealing joy of six cameras.

 

**3\. meeting you was like a moment from a non-pornographic movie**

David's publicist tells him that it will be amazing for his career if he shows up at Miley Cyrus's Disneyland birthday party and takes pictures with the other teen idols there, possibly standing beside Miley. He asks if he can bring his little sisters, because they watch Hannah Montana and probably have lots more in common with Miley's friends and can point out who Miley's friends are. Sam doesn't blink, only taps the corner of the invitation where it says in purple letters that he can bring one guest plus a guardian. She also gives him, like, a cheat sheet with I.D. pictures and nicknames, and calls Miley's people to say "yes," even though David hasn't said "yes" yet.

Nobody tells him that it's a costume party.

He's wearing $300 jeans and a designer jacket, which he had felt kind of stupid about in the limo, but now he wishes he had taken the stylist's advice about the bedazzled vest, because he's embarrassingly underdressed. A girl half his age is walking by him wearing a fur-trimmed fedora, and earlier, David had seen the High School Musical people pose together like an explosion in a fabric warehouse.

Jazzy pulls his dad to the rides while he has to stay in the ballroom to get photographed. No one tells him that he has to stay in his seat and pick at the plate he grabbed from the buffet table while waiting for them to come back, so David excuses himself from nobody in particular and walks to the exit.

The bathroom is cold, but it's quiet and doesn't make his ears hurt. He washes his hands, humming a little, his voice bouncing nicely along the tiled walls. Sometimes he thinks he should record his songs in bathrooms, but all the equipment won't fit and he might inconvenience people by making them go to different floors if they want to pee.

"That's kinda awesome, man."

David laughs, because otherwise he'd be screaming, and turns to see a guy leaning against the doorway to the bathroom. David's relieved to realize he actually knows him, not just from Sam's cheat sheet of grainy smiling teenage faces.

Besides, he had already met Joe Jonas twice, once backstage at Idol Gives Back, the second time at the TCA. It's kinda weird seeing him without his brothers.

"It's kinda weird seeing you without your brothers," David blurts out, and somewhere, he can just hear Cook laughing his butt off. "Sorry. I mean, uh, thanks?"

Joe laughs, shakes his head sharply. "Nah, it's cool. I s'pose it's our own fault since it's the band name and everything." He says band name like it's a dirty word.

"But, you know," David starts to reply, except it's none of his business if Joe feels like it's terrible to only be interesting when he's one of three. David feels that way too, now that the Idol tour was over and he no longer had Michael Johns to make goofy faces or Ramiele to tip her head on his shoulder when they were both feeling homesick. No one to sing aloud and off-key whenever his song played on the radio. It felt like – what was the word? Cook would've known, but he wasn't there to be asked – oh, right. Resignation.

"You probably didn't mean any of it," Joe is saying. His grin is huge and one tooth is slightly crooked. "But all the rumors about you and Miley—"

"—what?"

Joe flaps a hand dismissively. "—and my brother is mad, you can't even begin to, I mean, Nick broke up with her and now he's the one who can't deal." He screws up his face and says in what David supposes is a deliberately terrible impersonation of, uh, whatsis, Nick: "Shut up, I am not jealous! I've moved on and I'm dating someone new and why did you even bring her up? even though he was the one bookmarking the websites, the idiot."

David laughs, not because it's very funny or even because what Joe said made sense, but because he learned from the guys on tour that not laughing at unfunny jokes would have him swung from someone's shoulder until he threatened to vomit on them. His laughter encourages Joe to walk towards him until the tips of their shoes are barely touching.

Joe leans forward, and he can smell the sharp mint on Joe's breath, see every individual hair on Joe's eyebrows, and then he doesn't see anything anymore because Joe is kissing him.

Both of their mouths are slick with lip gloss and bottled water. David sighs, tips his head back, letting the point of contact between Joe and him bloom heat in the cold, cold bathroom. He closes his eyes. It seems appropriate.

He can feel Joe's hair falling like a curtain around him, and when some strands tickle his nose, he laughs into Joe's mouth. Joe steps back, face flushed and giddy and David can't help but wonder what he would look like if he faced the mirror. Probably bright red and wide-eyed, but in an amazing way.

Maybe there's something about Disneyland that makes boys randomly kiss other boys in bathrooms like it's no big deal at all.

Joe moves back another step, but reaches out to clumsily pat David's shoulder. His other hand's jammed in his pocket. "Um," he says.

David nods. He'd step back too, but the sink's behind him and it'll dig into his back, ow. Instead, he smiles – a small, lopsided tilt on his lips – and replies with more confidence than he actually feels, "S'okay."

*

He flies back to L.A. the next morning for a promo spot at a breakfast show. The blonde host gushes at him and tells the camera again and again, hands spread out like fans, to stay tuned for David singing his first single right here in the studio, what a treat.

"So, David," she says, leaning forward on her stool. "I heard you were at Disneyland with Miley Cyrus."

David smiles at the way the studio audience shrieks. "Yeah, I got invited to her party. It was really awesome."

The lady beams proudly, like David was her son or something, which is why he's surprised at what she says next. "People are wondering: have you had that first kiss yet?"

"What?" David's mouth is stupid, more stupid than usual because he pauses too long before saying, "No, I haven't," and the lady knows it, raising one eyebrow significantly before moving into a question about some actress who was quoted on J-14 expressing intent to date David.

David thinks he's really, really lucky that the lady likes him.

*

Jackie'd found the clip on YouTube and showed it on to Jason, who had e-mailed it to Kristy, and she'd passed it on to Carly. At least, that's what he understands from the ten voicemails and twenty-two text messages on his private cellphone.

He calls Jason first, because Jason's the only one who uses the right pronouns. Also, because Jason won't ask who it was -- he's cool like that. David wedges his phone between his ear and his shoulder and starts going through the stack of press questionnaires some PR person wants him to finish during his break.

"Congrats, dude!" Jason's voice is warm and full of laughter; David can hear a guitar playing in the background. "I mean, congratulations are in order, right?"

David still doesn't get what the big deal is. He looks down at the Cosmogirl survey in his lap (question seven: what's your ideal date?) and replies hopefully, "Maybe they'll stop asking me about my first kiss," but both he and Jason know better: yeah, right.

"Yeah, right." Jason snorts, strumming a low, rich chord. David hums along out of habit.

Then Jason adds, "Oh, yeah, Kristy wants to know if there was tongue."

*

He doesn't call Kristy or Carly after that. He's alarmed at the number of exclamation points Carly fits into 160 characters, and Kristy? Oh, gosh. Not even going there.

*

Cook answers after the seventh ring. The questionnaires have been placed in a neat stack at the corner of David's bed, safe and out of the way.

"'lo?"

"I'm not interrupting, like, work, am I?" David asks and patiently waits while Cook laughs until he's wheezing all static-y in David's ear.

"Bathroom," David says, then, "oh, I'm not supposed to say that."

"Bathroom? Your first kiss was in a bathroom?"

David starts picking at the folds of his jeans, tips his head back against his headboard. "Yeah, but I have to say something much more, um, with flowers and violins? And that it was a date with a girl, but I can't mention anyone's name because. Nobody wants hate mail."

"Thought you were a romantic, Dave." Cook's voice is distant, like there's a gap between his mouth and the receiver. It reminds David of backstage after the finals, when Cook was going around repeating I can't believe it in a shocked kind of way and randomly hugging people, even strangers who were just passing by. David thinks back, wondering what he could have possibly said, but it really wasn't much, except--

"Violins are romantic, right? I mean, like, for a one-on-one type of situation? I haven't been on an actual date yet, except in groups with my friends, but I guess they don't count. I know flowers, they're a huge thing-- but maybe the violins are overkill?"


	3. and the band plays on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a rock band au

It happens like this: Cook's band (which is obscure with a devoted, cult-like fanbase) suddenly breaks out into the mainstream when one of its songs (and let's just say that the name of the band is Idolatry, because (a) heh and (b) I suck at naming things) is played over a dramatic moment in some indie film that ends up being nominated for a bunch of awards, including an Oscar, and lands at the top of the Itunes charts. So Idolatry is suddenly known and they land a distribution deal with a major label and they're suddenly unwilling celebrities. 

David C gets the most attention, being the front man who's intelligent without being incomprehensible and appealing to the ladies without necessarily making other guys feel threatened about themselves. But the other band members get attention too. Michael (lead guitarist) has an Australian accent that completely forgives whatever sexual innuendo comes out of his mouth and is not unwilling to take photos where he hasn't got a shirt--and sometimes, pants--on. Carly is Irish and temperamental, but when she's onstage and wielding her bass and the light flickers over her tattoos just so, people pretty much forgive the fact that she threw a shot glass at their heads. Jason frequently drums without a t-shirt; his eyes, his smile, his dreads and his erratically-punctuated Myspace bulletins all have their own Facebook groups. Then there's David A on keyboards, and this confuses reporters a lot, that a band has two people who are named David, except it turns out David A hardly ever responds to David. Or to pretty much anything at all, because he'll stare blankly when asked questions but will sing at random without any prompting whatsoever. His bandmates call him DJ. A music blog jokes that DJ's job is to sit still and look pretty, to which Idolatry responds by posting a video on YouTube of themselves in drag at a park, staring vacuously at the camera in silence.

When their featured-in-the-Oscar-nominated-film! song charts on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaks at #9, the music mags start paying attention to this obscure indie band and its fortuitously-photogenic members. Spin Magazine obtains rights to their first major interview, and the interviewer and his photographer agrees to meet Idolatry at a gig at some hole-in-the-wall bar. The photos of their set is amazing, all gorgeous light and shadows (David has friends from the local theater) and everybody's wearing amazing clothes (courtesy of DJ's nanny-friend Brooke) and the audience is insane. After the show, Idolatry doesn't head backstage, but instead goes out to the crowd signing autographs and talking to people and generally having fun, all the while being followed by the poor Spin guy and the photographer. They end up sitting in a quiet-ish corner of the room, the Spin people and David and Michael and Carly and Jason and--

"hey, where's DJ?" Spin guy asks.

David shrugs, swirling his bottle of Corona around with the tips of his fingers. "He's out there somewhere. He likes making the fans happy." His bandmates look equally unconcerned.

Spin guy thinks about this, decides, what the hell, it could add color to the piece and brings out his tape recorder. 

The interview goes surprisingly well. For a band's first encounter with a national magazine, Idolatry knows how to deal with the press, generous with interesting anecdotes but charming enough to evade questions they clearly didn't want to answer without being offensive.

Michael and Carly are bickering over a comment someone posted on the band Myspace six months ago ( _old argument_ , Spin guy writes on his notepad, and, _sexual tension?_ ) and Jason's laughingly egging them on when DJ finally arrives at their table.

"Hi," he says, blinking down at them. His face is pink and freshly-scrubbed, and his eyes are no longer caked with eyeliner.

Spin guy opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, DJ is a squirming bundle of flailing extremities on David's lap, yelling "Cook!" in a quiet sort of way that meant that he wasn't protesting that much. Carly reaches over and pinches one of DJ's cheeks and David says "Carly!" which Michael and Jason fall over themselves imitating in increasingly high-pitched and over-offended ways.

"Settle down, kids." David flaps at them lazily with one hand, the other still trapping DJ against him. He turns to Spin guy. "Uh, where were we?"

Spin guy looks around the table. Six bottles of beer, in varying levels of emptiness. He notes that David (former bartender) still has a nearly-full bottle and says, "Um, would you like something to drink, DJ?"

DJ smiles, shakes his head. "No beer for me, but thank you."

Right, right. "18, right?" Spin guy asks, because the papers he'd been given hadn't been clear on that.

"Oh," DJ says. "I'm only seventeen." He starts humming under his breath.

David's grinning wide and proud. "He's the oldest member of the band."

"No, I'm not. Michael Johns is, like, as old as my dad," DJ says, tipping his head back to rest lightly on David's shoulder. The house music's sliding easily from Dave Matthews Band to Bono singing _baby's got blue skies up ahead_ and the photographer's foot nudges the Spin guy's leg and the light is fucking perfect, posed and framed and ready--

\--front page, he thinks, of David and David, his damp bangs and his unruly beard all tangled up, and Carly and Michael, glints of wedding rings and secret glances, and Jason, the one straight man--

\-- and David glances over at him, and Spin guy's pulse jumps and without even looking away from David, Spin guy shakes his head no and the camera stays dark and DJ giggles at something Jason says and the moment (if it ever did happen) passes.


	4. 10 minutes to go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> iron chef au (this is just ridic)

David was supposed to be paying attention to the explosion of activity in front of him, but instead he was admiring the yellow dragon stitched onto his sleeve. It clashed perfectly with his purple paisley cravat, a fact that had his stylist moaning for disability pay, but David knew the post-show Twitter reactions would be worth it. 

Ignoring the mock-annoyed look from the director, David adjusted the fold of his robe so it would drape just so over his arm.

His Iron Chef looked like he was doing well, anyway. David could see the red toque bobbing up and down amid pots billowing steam and red-faced assistants. He knew that the guest judges and even some of the producers wondered why he'd chosen Archuleta for the challenge, but there was a method to David's madness. 

The thick, heady smell of 15 different varieties of curry and the quickly-warming Kitchen Stadium were lulling him to sleep, when a murmur suddenly rippled through the audience. 

David sat up, just in case the camera swung his way for a reaction shot. 

"Ooh, the Iron Chef's switched on the ice cream machine!" Alton Brown announced from the floor, causing a brief spatter of applause and some wollf-whistles.

David leaned forward (near-imperceptibly; it wouldn't do for even a fake food connoisseur to show impartiality towards any contender) and waited patiently -- ah, there was Archie, pouring something pinkish and undoutably incredibly spicy into the machine. An assistant was gesturing agitatedly, but Archie just laughed and shoo'ed her away to grate some chocolate.

When the last of the mixture was scraped from its bowl, Archie patted the side of the grumbling machine fondly, then looked up and caught David's eye. As David watched, Archie licked his pinky -- the quick flash of his tongue like a streak of rum-soaked flambé -- and ducked his head.

David sat back, his blandly interested Chairman smile nearly threatening to turn genuine. Archie had made enough ice cream for a summer month, but there were only four peppermint-garnished bowls on his preparation table. There'd be pints of the stuff left after the show wrapped up.

He couldn't wait to taste the curry ice cream from the hollow of Archie's throat.


	5. fabricati diem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which trying to emulate pterry's style would wreak havoc on my psyche, so i didn't even bother. (though i did nab the faux latin title). discworld!verse cook/archuleta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for jehane18 :D

The Assassin was not clad in the usual dapper black that seemed capable of discoursing upon the history of the ice-cream fork before stabbing you with it; instead, the black coat was aggressive in its discreet silver trim and a suggestive hem that skimmed the tops of well-worn boots. The effect was not unlike the kind of aristocracy you could forgive a cheeky bum-pinch for because it had a way of smirking when you squeaked.

Lieutenant Archuleta, popularly known as Archie among the officers of the City Watch, blinked rainwater from his eyelashes and said, "Um."

The assassin sighed, gave one of the moaning lumps on the ground an idle kick and picked up Archie's helmet, which had rolled into the gutter during the confusion of the fray. He scowled at the mud splattered on it, then bent down and briskly wiped the helmet down on the trousers of the lump he'd just kicked.

Archie pushed back the sopping hair plastered to his forehead. It felt like he should be saying something, but what? Thankfully, his Watch training supplied him with a few stock phrases to choose from.

"You're under arrest."

The assassin paused in the act of buffing the helmet, asking, "Arrested for what?"

"For… assaulting them." Archie gestured at the three or four—he didn't want to be uncharitable, but the evidence was kind of obvious—thugs whose limbs were in angles no human limbs should ever have to achieve.

A carefully-groomed eyebrow lifted. " _They_ attacked you."

"They'll be arrested too," Archie assured him, and toed a knife away from the reach of the incredibly stubborn thug nearest him. "Your fingers are broken, you know. You'll just hurt yourself," he said reprovingly.

The other eyebrow, not willing to be undone, rose as well. Something abruptly tingled down Archie's spine; it might have been rain seeping underneath his cloak.

The assassin replied, "How very fair of you."

The sneeze that followed this observation startled them both. The sardonic amusement on the assassin's face dissolved into annoyance, and Archie abandoned his search for the notebook he always kept on his person for any crime-noting emergencies to fumble for a handkerchief. This he waved under the assassin's (reddening) nose.

The assassin took the handkerchief, out of surprise more than anything.

"I can't let you get sick under my custody," Archie explained.

The smile that crept over the assassin's lips as he regarded the sodden square of cloth was curious in its tenderness.

He said, "I think it helps to know who you're arresting, huh? Name's Cook. Assassins' Guild, as you can tell."

Archie shook the outstretched hand. It emanated warmth from within a leather glove and under the unceasing rain.

"I'm—"

"I know. Nice to finally meet you, Lieutenant Archuleta."

Archie decided that he didn't want to know exactly what "finally" meant. Working for the Watch tended to hone a person's survival instinct.

Cook continued, "Somewhat auspicious this first meeting has been, what do you say if we were to continue this somewhere&mdash" his grimace encompassed the rain, the now-unconscious lumps of Ankh-Morpork's unluckiest thugs at their feet, and the dank alleyway surrounding them "—drier? The water's hell on my hairstyle."

"Gosh, you talk a lot," Archie said. Then again, being a copper meant that one's survival instinct tended to flicker out at the most inopportune moments.*

Cook stared at him, then, instead of sliding a dagger between Archie's ribs, guffawed.

Assassins were weird people.

But they had nice laughs.

 

* For example, the moment during Watch recruitment when he was asked, "Are you absolutely sure you want to join the Watch?"


	6. hereafter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was gone. Dave shouldn't really have been surprised; the others had abandoned ship. No more point in staying in an imperfect plane of existence when there was paradise a wing-beat away.

Everything was different after the end.

It wasn't really The-Capital-Letters-End (portentous thunder optional), for one. Dave called it the Half-Hearted End of the World (no one had gotten "The Apocralypse", to his dismay), but that was strictly inaccurate too.

Nothing had ended. It was like nothing had even _begun_. Even the body count had reset. Dave had to curl into himself in a quiet corner when he found that out. Neal was so unnerved by Dave's face when they saw each other again that he automatically punched anyone who tried to comment on it.

Nobody mentioned that nearly a million had died, then came back to motherfucking life, into bodies that had once been rent to pieces, fed to hellhounds, impaled on angels' spears, used as meat suits by Righteous Bastards of Heaven and the Vicious Douchebags of Hell.

Nobody mentioned that there had once been a scar running through half of the continents, jagged and bottomless, and that Dave couldn't stop retching for a month when he realized he'd forgotten what the color green looked like.

The hosts (arrayed in all their splendor, what a fucking joke) had fled back to the comfort of their clouds. The hoards (black-eyed and spitting like scuttling bugs) had slunk down into the pits from whence they came. Those who had been caught in the middle of the (stupidest) pissing contest ever were returned to their toy cupboards, no worse for wear.

Except for David Cook, of course, because he was special. He was chosen. A complete mental breakdown was a small price to pay for someone to stand as the living warning of the dangers of letting the divine and the damned run the show when God was fucking around somewhere else.

But -- and here was the real kicker, the extra twist to the knife, the stunner that was guaranteed to land him in a padded cell for the rest of his life -- 

\-- he wouldn't change a goddamned thing.

Everything was the same after the end, but it was the same everything of a room that had been rearranged by someone who only had the vaguest idea of what the room was like before it got trashed. The big picture was correct, but there were details, small niggling bits and pieces that weren't _quite_ there, that were two inches to the left of where they used to be, that only someone who'd keep their eye on them could point to and say, "ah."

Dave could've blamed it on the shock of Look Ma! No Apocalypse! He could've blamed it on the booze he tried to drown himself in, or the raging hangover that followed when he realized that the booze wasn't deep enough. He could've blamed it on a million different things, but he didn't. If the last year had taught him anything (if _he_ had taught him anything), it was that there was no fucking use for blaming yourself for what you couldn't control.

(He could be a self-help guru in this brand new/old world. Beats being the so-fucking-called savior of humanity.)

_He_ was gone. Dave shouldn't really have been surprised; the others had abandoned ship. No more point in staying in an imperfect plane of existence when there was paradise a wing-beat away.

David had been too stubborn, too thick-headed, too focused on the _nownownow_ to stop and ask: what next? what about you?

(what about us?)

He tried to say goodbye the night before the end; Dave hadn't listened. He'd swallowed the words forming like breath from the corners of Archie's lips, replaced the wide expanse of sorrow in his eyes with shocking desire, trembling wonder.

The morning after, Archie hadn't tried again. They'd been too busy. The guns had to be checked and rechecked (Dave's eyes never left Archie's fingers as they slid over the catches and bullets, but not -- never -- because he didn't think Archie couldn't do it right) and the sigils on Archie's body had to be redrawn.

It wasn't the last time they saw each other, or spoke to each other, or held each other skin-to-skin. It was, however, the last time they had buttoned each other's shirt, shared the same box of crappy donuts and hummed the same half-remembered song from their neighbor's radio.

After the end, Archie was gone. Not the "gone" of "vanished mysteriously? let's call the police, everybody!" or "c u l8r, brb". It didn't even have the courtesy of the blinding light pouring out of him, the angel leaving behind the body of the poor kid who'd been suckered to serve in a war beyond his scariest nightmares. 

No. Because this was Dave's life, it had to be weeks later, when he finally was sober and sane enough to ask, "Do you remember Archie?"

Funnily enough, when the angels said "gone", they meant "leave no trace behind". No need to scorch the earth, just carefully surgically extract one single measly angelic presence that had once walked on it.

To take everyone's memories of the angel who'd turned his back on his brothers and sisters to be on the side of humanity, at _Dave's_ side -- Dave still couldn't decide if that was yet another example of how Heaven wanted to fuck him up or a token kindness.

Except.

Friends kept asking him where he got the tattoo on his wrist. Freaky, said some. Cool, said others.

Dave never said a word. All he had to do now was continue hunting demons -- after all, that was what he was good at.

His occasional detours into insanity induced by seeing everyone he loved die horribly and then just as suddenly…not being what they were, Dave first thought it was a hallucination.

Scratch that, Dave's first thought it was a demon who wanted to commit suicide, because what demon would show up at a hunter's motel room at ass o'clock in the morning possessing a body that almost exactly resembled Dave's former lover-slash-guardian-angel if not one who liked ending up as a smoking crater on the ground?

In a remarkable display of self-restraint, Dave didn't just shoot the demon's head off and be done with it. The brain splatter would've been difficult to explain to the motel manager.

"I am so not in the mood," said Dave in his most conversational tone.

"Cook," the demon said, and this time Dave's finger pressed the trigger halfway home before he caught himself. 

No more of this. No fucking more. "Shut up." When the demon looked like it was about to twitch, Cook repeated: "Didn't they teach you how to obey orders at demon school? Not a word from you or I'll put a bullet in your brain pan."

Dave could recite the script that followed in his sleep. The demon would smirk, as if to say that Dave didn't have the balls to harm anybody who resembled Archie, and Dave would have to prove it wrong and then spend another month or so doing violence to evil creatures until he stopped screaming.

When the demon didn't move, only blinked and held its arms loosely at its sides (and, fuck, its cuffs were unbuttoned and a sliver of wrist peeked through, just like -- _dammit_ ), Dave had to rearrange his mental process.

He slid the gun back into its holster, surprising them both. He pressed the heel of his hand to his eye and muttered to nobody in particular, "What the hell, I'm way overdue for the imaginary people visitations as it is."

"Cook," the hallucination said again, and Dave was impressed with how vivid this apparition was compared to the last time he'd seen things that weren't there. (Less of the obnoxious compulsion to go "wooaaaahhhh" at the wallpaper too.)

Dave turned around and stumbled back to sit on his bed, burying his face in his hands, not feeling anything at all. He could hear the soft footsteps of the hallucination as it entered the room, but didn't bother to exert himself to check if it had morphed into yet another painful facet of Dave's life.

The hallucination heaved an all-too-familiar sigh (oh _god_ nobody had ever told Dave how to cope with non-LSD-induced visions, how come nobody told him they came with surround sound?) and he heard the thump of mass settling on threadbare carpet and felt a displacement of air in front of him --

\-- felt hands, skin rippling with muscle and blood and bone, parting his arms as easy as parting butter with a hot knife, leaving goosebumps in their wake --

(no hallucination had ever been like this)

\-- and it was wrong, it couldn't be, because he was _gone_ and it had been weeks and Archie never smelled like this, he never smelled of anything before but the ozone prickle of his power that he'd hidden behind his smile, a smile that was nothing like the one on this hallucination's face, because his Archie could be solemn or joyous or delighted or angry --

\-- but he'd never been hurt, because angels never felt pain. 

"They let me, I asked if, I didn't want to leave," the hallucination said, and its hands had grabbed fistfuls of Dave's shirt and Dave could feel that it was shaking all over. "I never wanted to leave. Everything's been, I never thought life would be -- " Archie took a deep breath, the fists relaxing and fingers drifting up to stroke Dave's beard lightly; Dave craned towards it like a flower bending towards the sun.

A thumb brushed the skin stretched taut over his right wrist and Dave let himself believe again.


	7. archie is a conman au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shades of White Collar!

It wasn't as if, not like he was, look, David didn't plan for any of it to happen. Growing up he'd wanted to become an astronaut, then a doctor, then Mariah Carey, then back to being a doctor after he threw up on the drama teacher when he tried to audition for "Supporting Greaser # 4" in Murray High's spring production of Grease in sophomore year. He managed to scrape through AP Biology as a senior, applied for and got into the Biology Department at the University of Utah and life was great for a while, until --

\-- the semester was ending, he had just staggered out of his organic chemistry final mostly intact, when some of his classmates who he could vaguely remember by face invited him for a celebratory night out in town, and maybe David was just a little insane from three nights straight of instant ramen and memorizing hydrocarbon structures, and he said, stupidly, _okay_ \--

\-- only it turned out that the "night out in town" was to be held three towns over, in a bar that didn't care at all that van full of undergraduates entering it legally shouldn't be served alcohol, and after three mango margaritas David didn't care either, except that when he ducked into the bathroom to wash his face, then blow-dry his shirt and his pants after he sloshed water all over himself, when he went back out it turned out his classmates collectively decided to move to the karaoke place two blocks away without telling him, and that made David pout, but not as much as when he learned that there was nobody left to pick up the tab besides him --

\-- and he wasn't exactly destitute or something, but there were a lot of undergrads and a lot of drinks, and David was sure when his dad slipped him a credit card "for emergency purposes" he probably didn't mean this kind of emergency, and the bartender didn't look impressed when David tried to plead his case (maybe it was the slurring, or the fact that drunken blow-drying didn't exactly remove all of the wet spots from his jeans), but then a bunch of men in leather jackets started cat-calling from the pool tables and made suggestions that would've had David blushing if he wasn't already red from all the alcohol, and --

\-- David was kind of, he didn't want to brag about it, but he was amazing at pool, and the guys had wads of bills and change lining the tables that David needed, and they were smirking at David, and sure, for the first few games David stumbled around trying to figure out where the right end of the cue was, and why there were two eight-balls that he had to hit, but then the guys got drunker and more agreeable and pretty soon David had fistfuls of twenties in his pockets, and the bartender finally let him off the hook --

\-- then afterwards, one of the guys followed him to the exit, the one David knew had his hand on David's butt during a particularly heated game but David was too polite and also drunk to properly point that out, and he was too close to David, so David tried to remember what his mom said about talking to strangers, and he smiled at him, and stammered, and resisted eye contact, and the guy sort of, he went wide-eyed and stumbled back with this weirdly goofy look on his face, and he pressed a damp hundred-dollar bill at David and apologized and went away, and then the bartender stared at David and said, "Wow, you're good."

Then David woke up the next morning with the worst headache he ever had in his entire life, the distant beat of Rhianna shaking his bedframe, nearly five hundred dollars of cash stuffed into the mini-safe his siblings had given him as a graduation present, an unopened letter from the student loan office on his desk, and an idea.

"I mean, you know, it's kinda weird and stuff, because of television people expect, like, a person should be suave and have one-liners and maybe a British accent? And I'm not a good actor, my sisters still have the tape of me being a shepherd from this third-grade Christmas play, and they watch it every other month and I can still hear them laughing even when I'm outside. I mean, I did want to be Mariah Carey for the longest time, and she's not a good actress either, so I guess that worked out well, until I threw up on Mr. Daley and lost my chance to become Greaser # 4. Um, where was I?"

David sighed and glanced down mournfully at the shiny handcuffs around his wrists, then back up again at the two FBI agents (he checked; they had actual badges, not the tin kind that could fool most people but on close inspection looked like they fell of the back of a truck, and also he was in the actual L.A. field office, which definitely proved that they were FBI agents) who were sitting across him inside Interrogation Room 3. He didn't know for sure what their names were, because when they were introducing themselves David thought he had heard a radio playing somewhere, then he remembered he hadn't checked yet what songs were on the Hot Top 40 that week (and if he had to call in to request Sara Bareilles), so he understandably didn't catch anybody's names.

"You've probably, like, caught a lot of people already, right?" David said, sitting up as a thought occured to him. "I know with some people they have criminal minds, but I don't know, I mean, I've never hurt people. I'm a pas-- pacific-- no wait, that's the ocean, right? It's on the tip of my tongue, sorry--"

"Pacifist," one of the FBI agents, the guy, who had a beard David was kind of envious of, because wigs could only go so far, said.

David beamed at him. "Pacifist, that's it! I exercise everyday and I know, like, basic maneuvers, but I don't like guns because they're so loud and scary, and I know for sure that I've only punched two people in my life, if you don't count my friend Alan, and we were just goofing around so it doesn't count, and besides I think the punches hurt me more than them, and they deserved to get punched, even though my grandma would disapprove--- oh my gosh!" He leaned forward jerkily, not noticing that the lady FBI agent's hand instinctively went for her right side to the gun-shaped shadow cunningly hidden there. "Are you calling my parents? They don't know I, that I, they think I work part-time at a music store! Oh my gosh, they'll be so disappointed in me."

David moaned softly, burying his face in his arms at the thought of his mom looking at him like she couldn't believe her baby boy was living a life of crime and depravity after they raised him to be a morally-upright citizen. Overcome, David didn't notice the scrape of chair legs on the floor until he felt a light tap on his shoulder.

The guy agent -- and up close David could see his I.D., and there was his name right there: David Cook, oh wasn't that a, there was a word: coincidence, and an ugly picture that totally did not resemble the real thing -- Agent Cook had scooted over to David's side of the gray-walled room. He looked funny (not funny haha, because Agent Cook was good-looking for someone who was an FBI agent and didn't just play one on TV) as his nose was scrunched up and his mouth twisted like he was holding back some kind of great emotion almost against his will before he noticed David staring at him and his expression smoothed over into nothing at all.

"Look, Mr. Archuleta," Agent Cook said, and David went rigid in fear that his dad was right behind him, wait, oh, Agent Cook was talking about him, gosh, David wasn't used to that, "No one's calling anyone's parents. We just want to talk to you."

Agent Cook's voice was very nice, low and kind even though it sounded a little like David's feet scraping on the gravel path outside, except maybe musically? which pebbles didn't usually sound like, but Agent Cook did. And it was the voice, and maybe the unexpected green-brown warmth of Agent Cook's eyes in the cold room, that made David blurt out with his stupid mouth, "Aren't you arresting me?"

He cringed a little, but what the heck, he'd already said it, and it wasn't like his spring break trip couldn't get any worse, except if he actually had to go to prison, or worse, if Agent Cook was lying and the FBI did call his parents. But Agent Cook's eyes crinkled faintly at the edges, and he replied, "Not if you want us to."

David said, "oh my gosh, no, are you crazy?" and the lady agent said "Cook!" at the same time, so the crinkles dug in deeper. There was also definitely something suggesting a smirk around his lips, which made the lady agent say "Cook" again, louder this time, and slide a slim brown folder with the FBI logo across the table to Agent Cook with a raised eyebrow that made David envy her. How were all of these FBI agents be so awesome? Did they have classes on being cool and stuff? They would totally make better bad guys than David.


	8. phone sex ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt "phone call" for the cookleta@lj fic train

_I don't think this is a good idea_ , David says, and _this is so embarrassing_ , but you recognize the hitch in his voice, his stuttering breath when you say, low and casual, _Take your shirt off_ , and smiles at the ceiling at the rustling sounds, crackling and tinny as they pour from the speaker and fill your hotel room-- if you close your eyes you can almost see him kneeling in front of you, arms tangling with cloth in his haste to comply, the blush spreading across his skin revealing itself inch by agonizing inch as he reveals himself to you, his chest pinkening, then his shoulders, then his cheeks and the soft curves of his ears, tempting you to bite— David gasps, _oh_ , and you realize you've said this all out loud, but isn't that the point? and David says, his voice shaking, _I want you to, harder, leave a mark, let them see_ , and you bite down on your lip with a force that almost draws blood, shocked and yearning to see his face as he says that-- _you're good at this_ , you tell him instead, and he replies, _really?_ and you want to laugh, because he sounds so earnest, and when has phone sex ever been earnest? but there's a time for laughing and tickling and this isn't the time, not with your hand lingering at the waist of your pants, and David's sighs filling the room as he touches himself at your command.

_I want to lick you_ , you say, _long lines up your thighs, my hands on your knees pinning you down so you won't kick when you feel my breath on your cock, and I want you to shout when I swallow you down_ — David gasps like he's dying, and you tell him, _don't hold back_ , and he moans brokenly, almost loud enough to bury the slick-wet sounds as he fucks into his fist, like it's your mouth, stretched around him, and you wonder hazily what his eyes look like when he's imagining you sucking him, because he'd said he had no imagination for this, that this wouldn't work because he couldn't picture it, wouldn't picture it, before your thoughts fragment when he comes, bed creaking and you picture the perfect arch of his spine when his hips jerk— _Cook? Oh my gosh Cook?_ his voice, rough from more than just the crappy cell reception, filters through to your near-drunken haze and you peer down at yourself, almost surprised to note the dark stain on the front of your pants, and you hasten to say, _yeah, still here_ , and David says, _good, that was lovely_ , and god, you want to see his eyelids fluttering as he slips slowly into slumber, hair plastered to his nape, and you should really be saying, _hang up, long day tomorrow_ , but his deep, even breaths are oddly warm against your cool sheets.


	9. iron man au (notfic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the ridiculously overwrought and OTT story outline i made for an Iron Man AU, ostensibly for au_bigbang@lj.

david cook is a reporter for the daily chronicle, and he's just been assigned to write a story on david archuleta, head engineer and ceo of ~something~ industries. this is a big scoop, because it's in the wake of mr. archuleta's surviving an explosion in manila, and this is the first time the company has granted access to mr. archuleta. he's kind of mysterious? and that sort of shit (figure it out man).

so david goes off to the ~something~ offices and is shepherded to the top floor where he's met an assistant and then to mr. archuleta's personal lab. it turns out mr. a isn't some sort of bitter temperamental genius, but a kinda awkward guy who looks like he should still be in college or something. except he's kind of way too nice and his staff and the executive board have conspired to keep him on the d-l because he likes talking about his work, he absolutely enjoys telling everybody about what he does, which gets to be a problem when some of his work is ridiculously revolutionary and confidential. 

despite himself, david's taken in by mr. a, "archie," mr. archuleta offers. "everybody calls me that, i don't mind." and it's probably the easiest assignment david ever has, which isn't saying a lot because he used to be in the crime beat, and he was the best before his editor got worried about him getting burnt out and promoted him (temporarily) to business. 

so everything's going swimmingly there. in the greater world, there are these rumors of some sort of robot menacing the streets of the city, and a lot of people think it's just crazy people talking -- robots? pshaw -- until a cameraphone captures a video of the robot menace assaulting a lady in an alleyway and boom. city-wide panic. david hears all about this at the press room at police hq, where he still hangs out whenever he could because that's where his friends are.

and he wishes so hard that he could be on that story and unleash his investigative skills, except he gets distracted when his story on archie starts to fall apart. archie is tired and even more flighty than usual during interviews, "oh, it's just this, um, project that i'm working on," he said, smiling and hollow-eyed, and then he stops their talks indefinitely and the assistant is tight-lipped and won't say anything.

so dave's instincts start to niggle at him, so he goes elsewhere, straight into ~something~'s finances, charm and some creative bending of the truth getting him places where he officially shouldn't be allowed, where he starts to see an anomaly in the accounts. money's being drained somewhere and david, despite spreadsheets and a couple of accountant friends who are used to him barging into their offices, can't tell where it is. an anomaly that he realizes matches coincidentally with the reports of the robot menace.

after trying to figure out his approach now that he's been barred from the ~something~ offices, dave decides to confront archie at his place (hahaha idek). the big reveal of archie's arc reactor heart! archie is shirtless and both of them are bright red and david can't stop staring at the glowing circle on archie's chest and he's reaching out to touch it when archie gasps and he jerks his hand away. that it's not really a robot terrorizing the city, but archie's gold-titanium powersuit. which he's using to fight crime. kind of ineffectively, really, but he tries.

besides, the suit is way cool. archie had done it because he was worried that his bodyguards and the people who test his defense mech would be unprotected when something really terrible happens, and the idea of a full-body suit seemed like an awesome idea, and because he wanted to see if he could actually make it happen. (at some point dave's met j.a.r.v.i.s. or benton or whatever the fuck.) and there's this weird feeling in david's stomach, watching archie and jarvis interact, because it's practically mind-reading or whatever.

so archie makes dave promise to keep his secret, and maybe there's an argument about whether it's okay for archie to keep highly dangerous and groundbreaking tech like this to oneself, and there's the attendant sulking and making-up (probably with an embarrassing delivery of flowers to the police hq press room -- how do you even know where i stay? i, uh, traced you through your cellphone? um, but it was only once? and even the cops tease him about how he's totally being courted by one of the most desirable bachelors in the city) and dave is won over by how awesome the powersuit is in the end, watching archie be delighted over it, and seeing how much care he took building it and maintaining it, and hearing his whoops of joy when he tests the suit out (at night, in empty hangars owned by his company, where there's nobody else but him and dave and a hamper of warm sandwiches).

david shouldn't have been surprised when archie invites him to a party thrown by ~something~, sort of their annual big bash that archie usually only makes the briefest appearances at before hurrying back to his basement workshop, but this year, well it would be kind of nice, he had thought, and maybe dave would like to go with him, if he wanted? but dave is completely taken aback. but not enough to not say, yes.

the party is hilarious, david thinks. because archie is wide-eyed and clinging to him, albeit discreetly, at his own party, because he isn't used to the attention and the people eyeing him and coming up to shake his hand and take pictures of him. the various men and women looking david over and asking him to dance and flirting outrageously, well, that dave takes umbrage with, because hey, archie is his date. (the press people at the party either keep cheering him on or pestering him for exclusives, and david can't decide which contingent he wants to punch first.)

then the ballroom explodes.

people are screaming and there's rubble and smoke and small fires everywhere, and david's frantically looking for archie and there he is. he's still standing, thank god and david isn't sure if he's alright (please let him be okay) and he's about to scrabble his way over, when he sees what archie is staring at. it's a powersuit, like the one archie has, but not like the new ones that he only shows dave, his mark iii's and iv's, but an older design (mark i) that he once showed dave and it's right in front of archie and this is really freaking bad, shit --

\-- and the powersuit turns away and flies off and david realizes that he can breathe again. and he runs to archie, and archie is shaking, and there's an expression on his face -- shocked and horrified and streaked through with the beginning of fury -- and he says that, they know. they took it from me. what am i going to do, and david doesn't know what to say.

the next day, dave comes over and archie's in the suit, unusually serious, and david isn't an idiot, he knows what archie is planning, the diagrams on the monitors are intelligible even to dave's untutored eyes. neither of them say much, except: don't do anything stupid. i can't promise that.

later, while hanging out at the stock exchange, his phone lights up with an e-mail alert (one he set up a long time ago, at the beginning of his assignment) and the page has barely begun to load, when he's running, slip-sliding over the slick marble floor, dodging dour-faced suits and fumbling for his keys, damnit where are they, and he's in the car and shooting out of the carpark, stabbing the radio tuner with an impatient finger, where is it come on come on -- "--an explosion at xxx building, the head offices of ~something~ industries. our reporter is at the scene with information. dana, what can you tell us?

john, i'm here at etc street in front of the xxx building, and witnesses have confirmed that they saw an explosion occur at the 21st floor 10 minutes ago. employees have been evacuated, and police have not yet said if there have been any casualties."

and so dave manages to battle his way through traffic to get to the offices, and he waves his press id around until he finds a cop who's willing to look away when he ducks under the tape and there are confused and shaken ~something~ employees being herded around by police, and he spots assistant getting cleaned up at the back of an ambulance. but he doesn't know where archie is, and before david could interrogate him some more he gets jostled out of the way and he can't see david's familiar head or hear his familiar voice anywhere, when --

another explosion (david's ears are getting used to the tinnitus) and everyone screams as glass falls from the sky and there's more screaming and david looks up

and there's the metal powersuit from the ruined party, bursting out from the hole in the building, spinning madly but quickly righting itself, and then there's a low hum that quickly escalates and through the haze of blasted concrete and billowing flame, emerges another powersuit from the wreckage. it's sleeker than the first, and if that one looked unfinished and welded-on, this one was sleek and gleaming red-gold in the sunlight. david manages to have enough sense to yell at everyone to run away from the area as quickly as possible, and then ducks behind a squad car -- he can't keep his eyes away from the sky, he won't -- before the metal powersuit (mark i, his brain supplies, remembering the blueprints archie had shown him smilingly) hurles itself at the other one in a burst of light and fury.

[ action scene blah blah blah oh god i am so shit at this i don't even anyway it is fighting time with metal and repulsors and small missiles and machine guns etc. eventually mark iv manages to chase the mark i away from the city, somewhere over the harbor or whatever ]

david goes to archie's house and waits in the kitchen. finally he hears the rumble of the underground blast doors opening and the faint rasp of metal being dragged over concrete and the vibration under his feet that he's since recognized as jarvis/benton/etc powering up and counts a slow ten before walking down to the basement.

there he sees archie carefully extricating himself out of suit, robotic arms everywhere trying to help, and there's less blood than dave has been fearing, but it's still more than he'd wished. dave plucks a packet of cotton wool and a bottle of iodine from a pair of flailing pinchers, ducks under the trigger-happy fire extiniguisher extension and sits archie down on a stool and starts dressing his wounds. you really need to go to the doctor, he says, and archie says that he's already asked his personal physician to come around later and check him and david wants to yell or cry or torch the stupid powersuit but all he can say is, in his dispassionate reporter's voice that he hasn't used around archie since the first week they've met, what's going on.

archie tells him that there'd been a breach in his security months ago, before he even met dave, before the explosion in manila that messed with his heart, and it was just a small one, but it was in the data sector that included his files for the powersuit mark i and he'd been trying to figure out what happened since then but he couldn't and now this had happened, something unspeakable which had haunted his nightmares, of his creations being used to hurt people, when all he'd wanted to do was protect them.

and david says, i'm in love with you, which is really bad timing, because archie's plastered with blood, grime and bandages and they're in a basement surrounded by robotic arms and there's a pile of battered gold-titanium armor smoldering in the corner, except david can see the glow of archie's arc reactor heart under the thin fabric of his t-shirt, and he lays a hand over it, and the shock of the solid mass of metal surrounded by smooth hot skin makes david lean forward and 

the kiss starts with a meeting of lips, and david learns that archie's weird compulsion to use lip balm extends to even pre-robot asskicking, and he can feel archie's huffing, hitching breath on his face and beneath his palm, and then archie opens his mouth, and this is no longer a hello, how d'you do. it's wet and messy in more ways than one, and david drops the bottle he's been clutching to thumb at archie's jaw, stroke the edges of his clumsy bandages and let his tongue glide over the neat rows of archie's teeth and taste orange juice and copper-blood.

he feels archie try to move closer, shift under him and flinch abruptly from a sudden twinge of pain and so he breaks off the kiss and manages to say, we'll continue this at a later time, and has to smirk at the flash of disappointment tugging down a corner of archie's mouth before it lifts into a brilliant smile.

lest we be distracted from the point of this story, we'll continue. after archie explains that the mark i had blinded his electronics briefly and made its escape faster than he could come after it, david manages to persuade archie to help him with the search for the security breach. archie then mends his powersuit in the basement while david sits on the floor surrounded by three laptops running through terabytes of records with jarvis's help. his colleagues joke about him staying up all night with his millionaire boyfriend, but david brushes them off and eavesdrops on every conversation discussing the two "iron men", as they've been dubbed by the media. david's editor is particularly smug about coining that one.

david figures out it was a disgruntled ex-scientist who wants to sell the plans to arms dealers and either david becomes a damsel-in-distress when he tries to confront the bad guy by himself or he tells archie where he thinks the bad guy is and archie tries to go at it alone but david's like hell no i'm coming with you, because he's sick and tired of getting exploded at, and can archie use a gun? no he can't, which means dave has to go with him. action scene final encounter and at some point archie's arc reactor gets blasted and it starts to fail and dave's tries to joke, says, you're not really much of a superhero, man, you need more practice because archie's gasping and why is he still trying to smile, damn it, he should be conserving his energy for important things like breathing. this can't be the end, it can't, and suddenly it hits david and he wants to swear because he's been an idiot, and what the hell, it's better to be a sentimental fool than one with a dead boyfriend, and he tells archie to hold on, and runs to his car, to his briefcase that he's stuffed under his seat, rifles through the stacks of paper and trash in it, until, yes, oh thank god there it is, a lump swaddled in an oil-stained rag. he hurries back to archie, who's pale, so still, but his eyelids flutter open and he's staring at the lump dave's cradled in his hands and he croaks out, you kept it? and dave's all, yeah of course. (because archie totally gave it to dave, because he's really awkward and he really liked dave but the words won't come out, so he gave dave the first arc reactor heart he had which he made in the aftermath of manila, because it might be something dave could have to remember him by.)

[ sex scene? now this terrifies me ]

anyway, ending goes something like: david writes his article, sends it to his editor who's all, oh my god is this all true we aren't going to be sued are you absolutely sure this is true or are you just fucking with me, and david's all, hey man i never fuck around with my stories and his editor mumbles something under his breath but refuses to repeat it to dave, and then his editor says, this is front page stuff oh god i need to run this by the other editors hello can i speak to mr bradbury wake him up it's an emergency dave how the hell-- david calmly interrupts: i've sent you some pictures. i like the third one the best but it's your newspaper, your prerogative, and his editor is silent for a moment, then: oh my god. so you're running this for tomorrow, right? david says, and when all he hears is an awed uh-huh, he hangs up the phone. then he closes his laptop and goes to the bedroom, where he crawls under the sheets until he's right next to archie, who mumbles, is it done, into the hollow of david's neck and dave says, yeah, into archie's hair, and archie slurs, that's good, and david whispers, back to sleep, big day tomorrow.

[ archie comes out as iron man woohoo ending! ]


	10. chase you down until you love me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "benton calls me the superhero paparazzi, but, um, that's not true? because i'm only one person. so that should be just paparazzo. and they're not exclusives anyway."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second try at a superheroes au. lol.

before, david's just a second-string staff photographer who, being good with a camera and better with people, gets assigned to pr stunts at city hall or fluff pieces at the stock exchange. he only goes to the office to pick up his salary and have his six-month evaluation, and only vaguely knows the faces of the editors who choose or reject the shots he sends in for the day. it's steady work, if unexciting (occasional fringe-group demonstrations aside), and david prefers it that way.

this is before he manages to take the very first photograph of metropolis' first superhero.

*

tripping over his own feet only a little bit, david makes his way across the daily planet's lobby, juggling his equipment and a brown envelope that absolutely should not be bent in any way. he smiles at the receptionist and, walking past the elevator bank, jogs up five floors to the editorial floor.

"hey, sunshine! we've got cupcakes here if you want some," carly calls out as he passes by her desk.

"after i drop these off," david replies and wiggles his precious envelope (almost losing a thousand-dollar lens to the whims of gravity).

her eyes go wide and she half-rises from her chair. "are those--"

he nods and she whistles appreciatively. "front-page material again, that's for sure."

"no, it isn't," david protests, but it sounds weak even to his ears. there is a reason why he can't just e-mail these photographs like he does with 90% of his assignments.

sure enough, carly winks and sits back down again. "get yourself over to the boss before he has an aneurysm," she says, then adds sweetly, "i'll spread the word that you'll be paying for drinks tonight."

*

david tells everybody who asks that it had been an accident, really, that first time. it's one of those lucky shots that photographers get once in a while in their careers--a product of skill, yes, but also a kind of timing that leaves him with a good photograph, instead of blurs and blobs and useless smears of light and shadows.

this is the story as he tells it: one night he'd been practicing his night photography on his apartment's rooftop, when out into the smog-streaked sky had risen a shape that had been so far familiar only to david through painfully amateur videos and photos that had been limited to trails of blue fire. instinctively, david had followed the shape as it landed at an adjacent building. david had watched, enthralled, as the shape--and there was no denying that it was a person, a human being, or a sufficiently advanced facsimile--stepped to the side and was unwittingly bathed in the glow of a nearby billboard. light had revealed a sleek metal suit, silver on black, somehow eerily organic even with the robotic face and layers of armor plating. david had lifted the camera to his eyes and pressed the shutter rapidly in quick succession, only stopping when the person abruptly broke its stillness. startled and suddenly fearful that the click of his camera had been heard, david had scrambled backwards into the dubious safety of a nearby water tank--and had been pathetically revealed when the person had turned away and (there was no other word for it) disappeared into the night. it had taken a long time for david to stop shaking and get off the roof, and even longer to actually look at the shots he had taken.

(he hadn't even intended for the photos to make their way to the daily planet--his roommate benton had been poking around his laptop and had found the files, and badgered david endlessly until he gave in and e-mailed it to the planet's chief photographer with the note: maybe this could be useful? minutes passed before he'd been called down to the editor-in-chief's office, berated for sending in fakes, then berated for not sending them in earlier, then interrogated within an inch of his life before sara finally shook his hand, smiling proudly, and cowell yielding long enough to say, 'good work, archuleta. now get me more exclusives.' benton had made david promise to namedrop him when he makes his pulitzer acceptance speech.)

the nice thing about the story is that it's true for the most part. it had been an accident and a coincidence that he'd spotted the city's number one crime-fighting superhero while hanging out on his rooftop one night. he did get the lucky shots, and it had taken skill and luck both.

what hadn't been true is what david had been doing on the rooftop that night.

he hadn't been practicing night photography.

he'd been busy being the city's number two crime-fighting superhero.

*

after helping a confused messenger and dodging a passel of starry-eyed interns, david slips inside cowell's office with a sigh and still facing the door, starts to say, "um, i'm sorry about being late, there was a line at the store--"

\--only to be interrupted by a low, amused voice saying, "simon isn't here."

david turns. an oddly-familiar man standing by cowell's desk, staring at david with some bemusement. he's wearing a perfectly-tailored three-piece suit, the silhouette ruined only by one hand casually stuck inside a pocket, and david resists the urge to take a photo. everything about him screams, HIGHLY IMPORTANT VIP, and heat rises, unbidden, on david's cheeks.

"right," he manages to reply weakly, trying to fumble for the door with an elbow. "i'll-- i'll just wait outside?"

the man's head tilts slightly, and it's so unfair, no one should ever look this good under fluorescent light, like they're only a sunlit field away from being a gq centerfold, and his mouth curves up into a smile, and it's very, very unfair. "no, stay. i'm sure simon will be right back."

which is when cowell storms in, scowling fiercely at nothing in particular. "david, stop flirting with staff. david, you're late."

david splutters, "but i wasn't flir--," before his brain catches up to his mouth, and the man's smile tips over to a full-blown smirk.

cowell rolls his eyes and swiftly takes the envelope from david. he has the glossy 8x10s spread across his desk even as he says, as an afterthought, "david, meet archuleta, our photographer on the superhero beat. david, meet cook, our erstwhile owner. good god, what is this?"

david quickly extracts his hand from mr. cook's--yes, he can place him now, from an awards ceremony david had to cover, or had that been a conference?--grasp and hurries over to what cowell is pointing at.

"it's axium rescuing a cat from the fire," he says blankly.

"what a bloody cliche," cowell mutters. he waves off david's stammering attempts at an explanation and stabs at the intercom.

'mr. cowell?' ryan asks in his long-suffering-secretary voice.

"get randy and kara in here," cowell says, and stabs at it again, not waiting for a reply. moments later, the managing editor and city desk editor hurry into the office, mr. jackson punching david's shoulder and ms. dioguardi patting david's back in greeting, before they fall into a huddle over the desk. used to the routine, david edges backwards towards the ratty sofa in the corner of the room and finally relinquishes his hold on his camera bag with a grateful sigh.

so engrossed is he with rubbing his aching wrists (lugging around his telephoto lens and his tripod is no laughing matter) that he completely forgets the fifth presence in the room until mr. cook says, "so you're the one i should congratulate for the daily planet's exclusives," and david nearly jumps out of his skin. for a photographer, he can be weirdly unobservant sometimes. (and, oh no, he smells of the soot and smoke from the fire; david only hopes there isn't, like, ash on his nose or anything.)

"uh, yes," david says, looking up into cook's eyes. wow, cowell's been toning down the usually sub-zero temperature in his office. "benton calls me the superhero paparazzi, but, um, that's not true? because i'm only one person. so that should be just paparazzo. and they're not exclusives anyway."

cook blinks, opens his mouth, and closes it, as if unsure as to which part of david's reply he should reply to first. "they look like exclusives to me," he finally says, gesturing to the three-way editorial melee a few feet from them. "and i don't see photos as good as yours in the metropolis herald or the journal."

the owner of the daily planet, who metaphorically signs david's paychecks and is unfairly good-looking, thinks his photos were good (or at least, better than the herald's or the journal's). david's torn between embarrassed pleasure and the sinking realization that mr. cook will ask the one follow-up question that david can never find a reasonably honest response to:

"how do you do it?"

but to david's very great surprise, cook adds, "i hope you're not risking life and limb for these photos," raising his voice enough that cowell looks up from whatever he's doing and frowns absently, saying, "yes, yes, david, no exclusive is worth the three-degree burns."

"you could be a bit more convincing, cowell," cook says.

"i'm printing you money in a dying industry, cook," cowell replies blithely, and returns to sniping with randy over shifting some industrialist's ugly mug below the fold or something; most editorial arguments fly over david's head.

cook turns to david with a frown and says, "seriously, be careful out there," and he sounds so much like david's mom had after she saw that first front-page placement, torn between pride and worry, that david has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from giggling out loud.

*

the photograph of axium rescuing the cat isn't the banner photograph, but it's uploaded on the website, and quickly becomes the second most-emailed page in the daily planet's history (the first is an article where axium actually spoke to junior reporter sparks and gave her his name) and an internet meme. cowell stomps around the editorial floor, complaining about the lowered standards of newspaper readers being a death knell for journalism. carly gives david two new cupcakes and drags him to the nearest bar for drinks (paid for by david for his co-workers) and karaoke (halfway through the sports staffs rousing rendition of 'bed of roses', carly turns to david and slurs, "never more have i regretted the mutual blackmailing scheme that keeps all of our drunken antics off facebook," and david whispers back, "i'm impressed you can still say 'blackmailing'," which ends (predictably) with him dabbing at spilled ginger ale on his shirt and carly failing spectacularly to help him.)

david wakes up the next day and there's a ton of congratulatory texts and voicemails and e-mails to sift through, so it takes him a while to see the one from dcook@anthemicmedia.com that reads:

mr. archuleta, 

in case you suspect me of being a creepy stalker, i was given this e-mail by simon's obliging assistant, ryan. this... makes me sound like a creepy stalker, doesn't it?

congratulations on the photograph. i forgot to mention yesterday that i also enjoyed your previous work. keep it up :)

yours,  
david cook

\---  
david ronald cook  
the anthemic media, inc.  
http://www.anthemicmedia.com

this email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely  
for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. if you have  
received this email in error please notify the sender. this message contains  
confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. if you  
are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this  
email. please notify the sender immediately by email if you have received this  
email by mistake and delete this email from your system. if you are not the  
intended recipient you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or  
taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly  
prohibited.

"ooh," benton says, leaning over david's shoulder to peer at the laptop, "it's a ceo who knows how to use emoticons properly."

"stop reading my e-mails," david says, and waits until benton wanders back to the kitchen to star the message and forward it to his personal account so that he could have a back-up copy.

of course, all of his attempts at stealth are for naught as benton takes one look at him as they sit down for breakfast and crows gleefully, "don't deny it, dude. you sent a copy of the e-mail to davidshutterbug, didn't you?"

david says defensively, "he's owns the daily planet; it's a big deal," and tries to hide behind his orange juice.

benton's still grinning too knowingly (he had witnessed david surreptitiously looking for "david cook" on facebook last night, and david thinks with some despair that his life will be a lot easier if benton doesn't believe in the principle of mi computer es su computer so much), but drops the subject. 

"you patrolling tonight?" he asks through a mouthful of oatmeal.

"i'll do my best," david says, propping his chin on his fist. "i'm going over to jordin's, help her with the timeline for axium for this story she's planning."

benton nods in understanding. "enjoy your night of obsessive stalking, sorry, investigative journalism," he coughs, and raises an eyebrow significantly. "speaking of stalkers, how's it going with your other profession, apart from the obvious monetary and celebrity benefits?"

david shrugs and stands up, carrying his plate to the sink. "ok, i guess. i think axium knows i exist--i mean, me as the superhero--but he hasn't approached me or anything." he pauses, thinking back to the last near-encounter. "i dunno, it's like we've agreed to be in charge of different parts of the cities."

"and yet he gets all of the credit," benton points out. "i know you're not doing this gig to be known, but c'mon, boss. someone somewhere is bound to catch on to the fact that axium can't stop crime in two places at once. and who knows how he'll react--is he going to be mad there's another superhero trying to cash in on his territory? or his glory?"

david wrinkles his nose. "i don't think he does it for the fame either. he won't be wearing a mask otherwise."

"you think too highly of people," benton says fondly. "i'll stay on the scanner tonight and text you if anything interesting happens, ok?" he squints at david. "hey, when you do get famous, please tell the world that i'm your partner, not your sidekick. because i don't think i can rock the scaly underwear and pixie boots."

*

david doesn't really know why he's hanging out at the daily planet's offices today--well, he does. it may have something to do with ramiele's facebook status message: omg owner is here to "observe newsroom operations" everyone is pretending they're not on fb radio silence starting now c u l8r peeps xoxo, but he'll plead the fifth if pushed.

a pr firm's sent over a box of cookies to carly today, and she's oscillating between shooing michael off them and encouraging david to "have just one more".

david frowns at her. "don't you have actual work to do?"

she jerks a thumb at her latest intern, who's hammering away at his keyboard like it's on fire.

david frowns even harder. "aren't you afraid that mr. cook will see you?"

carly shoots him a grin that would have been terrifying if it isn't dusted with crumbs and streaks of chocolate. "he's in the entertainment section right now, which gives us, let's see," she glances at her watch, "around twenty minutes."

"ah," david murmurs and politely nibbles on another cookie. paula, who runs entertainment on a cloud of positive energy and possibly something much stronger, can be very passionate about her work. 

michael's pleading puppy-dog eyes peer at them over the cubicle wall. "pity an old man, carly. can i have a cookie? please?"

carly throws a pen at his head.

*

after michael holds the pen hostage in exchange for baked goods, carly finally shows mercy on the intern and starts calling up her reporters. david leaves her to a conversation about chapter 11 bankruptcy and makes his way to photos, where ricky is swearing at his computer, punctuating his remarks with the flat of his palm against the tower housing.

"piece of crap, there should be space in the budget-- hey, dave, what brings you here?--" he motions for david to grab a seat-- "stop freezing on me-- you don't have any axium for me, right? not that i can tell, since this computer keeps dying-- argh--" ricky whacks it again, then ducks under his desk and yanks the cord before powering up again.

"no," david says over the computer's opening chime, "nothing on axium today, i'm just visiting."

"bad timing on that," ricky remarks, wielding his mouse in a way that makes david think about epic orchestra music. "the owner's dropped by to check up on us, did you hear?"

david cleared his throat. "yeah, i heard. i, uh, saw him yesterday? when i dropped off the photos for mr. cowell. um, he told me he liked my work."

"as he should," says ricky sagely. "we've become the go-to source for all things superhero. not even the bloggers have our edge."

"they're the ones who broke the news first," david feels compelled to say.

ricky taps the side of his nose. "ah, but it was you who had the best photographs, and jordin got his name first. not even capewatch.com had those. did you see their post on the cat picture? comments full of wannabes screaming 'shoop'." he shook his head pityingly. 

david had, in fact, been banned by his friends from reading anything on the internet related to axium. when he'd asked why, jackie had said, simply, "haters gonna hate." so he simply goes, "ah," and watches ricky force his e-mail to cough up his "goddamn attachments". it's surprisingly engrossing, and he doesn't notice mr. cook standing there until ricky goes, "welcome to photo desk, sir."

"mr. minor, right. nice to meet you," mr. cook says. "call me david. 'sir' makes me feel old."

"no can do, sir," ricky says with a stunning casualness, and jerks his thumb at david, "already got a david."

"oh," mr. cook says, and david tentatively waves at him. "cook, then, unless you have one of those lying around."

"that one i haven't got," ricky replies cheerfully, then is distracted by an error message beeping on his screen, leaving david and mr. cook to stare at each other, the space between them filling up with ricky muttering under his breath, keyboards clacking and printers buzzing in other cubicles, phones ringing and the occasional sharp burst of laughter--the ever-present low-level noises that seem to be a permanent part of the newsroom. 

"nice to see you again, david," mr. cook tells him, cutting through the strangeness as easily as he smiles at the world. he's in a suit again today, but the tie's of a different color. he still (unfairly) looks like he stepped off a gq shoot, artistic scruff and all. "i hope you got my e-mail?"

"um, yes," david says, and oh gosh, somewhere benton is getting the strongest urge to cackle maniacally and he doesn't even know why. "thank you. i appreciated it."

mr. cook cocks a hip against the edge of the cubicle. "i meant to send you my congratulations when you got those first photos," he offers, "but i was out of the country at the time."

"you--" david coughs. "you did? i mean, um, it's all right." he smiles at mr. cook, trying not to let his burgeoning nervousness seep through it. "better, better late than never, i guess."

"yeah," mr. cook says faintly. "better--"

"cook!" the bellow is unmistakeably cowell's, and both david and mr. cook jump at the sound. "tell your social secretary to stop jamming up my phone lines and get out of my newsroom."

"all right!" mr. cook yells back, and winces ruefully at david. "sorry, i've got to--"

"--of course," david says, scrambling to his feet and nodding like a bobblehead. "it's been nice. seeing you again, i mean. and thank you."

"you deserve it. good evening, mr. minor," and just like that, he's gone.

"and a thousand employees sighed in relief and logged back on to facebook," ricky intones at his monitor, and david laughs, a strangled sound, and wills his heartbeat to return to normal.

*

benton had found out about david's clandestine after-hours vigilantism when david climbed in through his bedroom window after one such night and found benton dozing on david's bed, a battered copy of adventure comics clutched to his chest.

benton's reaction, in sequence, had been as follows:

1\. what the--  
2\. burglar!  
3\. dave?  
4\. this is a strange dream.  
5\. i shouldn't have eaten those leftovers.  
6\. this isn't the kind of thing that makes sense even if it's morning and i'm wide awake, is it?

just as david had been gathering up the nerve to mind-whammy his best friend into oblivion, despite "mind-whammying your best friend into oblivion" being definitely a no-no in the code of superhero ethics, benton's stages of secret-identity-unmasking cycle had moved into:

7\. hang on, that's your costume? no. just... no.

and 

8\. here i thought you've been sneaking out to meet some hot dude and was too ashamed to tell me.

and david had known, superpowers or no, that not only had he been forgiven from keeping this huge and life-changing secret from benton, but he had also gained an ally, no, a friend in his strange and new (and, before this, achingly lonely) life.


	11. fairytale!cookleta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt "fairytale cookleta" at the cookleta@lj fic train!

One day David wakes up and there's a guy making waffles in his kitchen. Delicious, golden brown waffles slathered with butter and cream and maple syrup and accompanied by fresh-squeezed orange juice. David doesn't even know he has oranges in his house, let alone ones fresh enough to extract actual drinkable juice from them. 

Maybe this is a dream. One of those really bizarre dreams that he gets when he stays awake for forty hours, hopped up on espresso and paint fumes, only to crash spectacularly after his agent has to handcuff him to his bed. But the guy isn't a fifty foot-tall green-skinned alien speaking in French, and David isn't naked.

He looks down at his wrinkled t-shirt and boxer shorts. Nope, definitely not naked.

The guy's humming to himself as he waltzes around the room, an honest-to-god apron rippling around his knees as he makes magical cookery things happen. The smells wafting from David's ill-used stove are so delicious that his stomach grumbles loudly, startling them both.

The guy spins around, a bowl of strawberries (strawberries?) cradled in his arm. "Oh!" he says. "Good morning!" There's a smear of flour down the line of his neck.

David says, "Hi." 

The guy frowns, and David maybe, almost feels bad about his lackluster reply to the enthusiastic greeting. But then the guy says, "Oh my gosh, did I wake you up? I'm so sorry, but I, like, sometimes I like to sing? And I try not to do it loudly, except--"

And David's not a terrible person (unless he's forcing himself to stay awake for extended periods of time, in which case his agent charitably describes him as "like something from The Exorcist, except you vomit Red Bull instead of pea soup") so he interrupts the increasingly-panicked babbling with, "No, you didn't. Wake me up, I mean. It's cool. You have a nice voice."

The guy's cheeks pinken a little, and David thinks, Woah. Tone it down, Dave.

But the guy only says, "Oh. Um. Thanks." He gestures to the kitchen table. "I'll have all the plates and stuff laid out in just a bit." When David opens his mouth to offer his help, the guy shakes his head, surprisingly firm, and says, "I've sorted your mail in the living room, but only into, like, junk and not," and David has no choice but to be banished from his own kitchen.

The guy is creepily good at sorting his mail, because it takes David only a short time to trash the worthless crap and separate the bills from the letters he needs to show his agent. He sits on his couch, wondering briefly if he could stomach watching one of the morning talk shows (nope), before realizing that he does have a newspaper subscription and goes back to the kitchen to ask the guy where it is.

He doesn't get to say a thing though, because the guy is bent over the table -- now laden with a picture-perfect breakfast on plates that David vaguely recalls receiving during his housewarming party but had never gotten around to actually unpacking from its box -- carefully unfolding the day's paper so that the crossword is visible. This he places beside one of the plates, and tops it with a thoughtfully-uncapped pen.

David quietly retreats again, strangely unwilling to interrupt him.

(Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a breakfast tray stashed on the counter. There's a daisy in a tiny glass vase on it.)

*

After breakfast (which was delicious but about as uncomfortable as a state dinner between two countries which didn't know each other very well but were forced to play nice), David makes a beeline for his studio, locking the door behind him and diving for the telephone.

"This is a fucking disaster!"

His agent replies, "Why, hello, David. How are you this fine morning? I'm fine, thank you for asking."

David slumps against the wall. "Seriously, Brooke, what the fuck?"

He doesn't have to see her to imagine her eyes rolling in exasperation. "I can't actually read your mind, David. Or divine your feelings from your use of swear words."

David's eyes flickers involuntarily to the locked door, irrationally afraid that whatever it is that had gotten fresh fruit into his apartment will impossibly allow the guy to overhear this conversation. Still, it can't hurt, so he lowers his voice to a near-whisper as he says, "There's a guy currently washing dishes in my kitchen."

"Huh?"

David takes a deep breath and counts slowly to five. Temperamental artists are so early 1900's. "There's a guy in my apartment. He just fed me waffles and crappy coffee and made small talk about topics that I'm sure neither of us care about, and now he's found a sponge from god-knows-where and is washing dishes. In my kitchen. And I'm pretty sure this is all your fault."

"So Archie's still there! Good, I was concerned," is Brooke's bubbly reply, and seriously, David's at a loss why no one ever accuses his agent of sniffing turpentine.

*

See, around ninety percent of the time, David isn't so bad. He's a very cool guy to be around, friendly and funny and with a generous smile and an even more generous heart. He calls his family every week, gives very refreshing interviews to the press and still hangs out at the same bar with the same friends every weekend whenever he can.

But David is also an artist, and like most intensely creative people, there's always that period when he transforms into the Worst Person In The World.

Ten percent of the time, David suddenly loses the inspiration that makes him one of the very few living American artists who have successfully crossed over into mainstream pop culture. With the inspiration gone, he also loses the ability to remain a bearable person to be around. He swears more than usual, drinks more caffeine and beer than usual, stops picking up after himself more than usual and, in Brooke's phrase, "starts to revel in his own filth and darkness". 

Worryingly, as of late, that terrible ten percent has started to become fifteen percent, then twenty percent, then thirty percent. David's been going through sketchpads as quickly as he's been draining cans of energy drinks. A fine layer of dust has been forming on the canvases he only uses when he's eventually ready to create something decent. The calls home have become increasingly terse, the swearing becoming decreasingly charming.

After three weeks of having to endure Cook's wild-eyed and bloodshot stare, Brooke finally stages a frantic intervention.

However, since she's Brooke, and Brooke doesn't do anything halfway when it comes to someone she considers more a friend than a client, her intervention comes in the form of an actual human being.

*

David doesn't remember much about the night he met the guy. He'd finally run out of coffee that afternoon -- or it had been more probable that his friends had very sneakily dropped by to steal all of the stimulants from Cook's cupboard while he'd been busy glaring holes at his sketchpad -- and was too busy being jittery to concentrate on what Brooke is doing.

She's sitting in front of him on the loveseat, and there's a guy sitting next to her. There's a small duffel bag on the floor at the guy's feet. The guy is staring at David curiously. The way his head is tilting, he kind of looks like a very wide-eyed bird.

Brooke is saying, "I'm your agent, which doesn't mean that I'm your baby-sitter. I can't stay in your apartment and lead you by the hand, because I have to be at the office and make excuses to the galleries and do damage control."

David wants to say, "Yes, you are. You're contractually obligated to take care of me," but he thinks his left eye is twitching as his body realizes that no more caffeine is going to be inputted into his system and he's easily distracted when that happens.

The guy leans forward and holds out a hand. "My name's Archie. Nice to meet you!"

Really, maybe it's a good thing that David doesn't remember much about that night. For one, he'd be mortified to discover that he'd replied to the guy's greeting by vomiting all over his hand.

*

David listens to the dial tone, scowling. Brooke had hang up on him! After telling him to suck it up and deal! Yeah, he can deal with basically sharing his space and his food and his life with some perky stranger who he'd met (if one could call that meeting) while he was at a very vulnerable moment of caffeine and art withdrawal. Yeah fucking right.

He paces his studio for a while, puzzling out his dilemma. Okay, he can see why Brooke had been desperate enough to pull this stunt. He had been an obnoxious jerk lately, and despite being required to produce breathtaking paintings in order to remain financially solvent, he shouldn't have been taking his frustrations out on other people, or on his poor apartment.

But to have a stranger living in his spare room, a guy he knows absolutely nothing about getting in David's way while he frantically tries to claw inspiration for a new exhibition out of thin air? David can roll with a lot of things, up to and including weird fans who send him nude photos through his agent, but someone he doesn't even know managing his household for him is stretching the limits of what he can tolerate.

Brooke had protested at that. She'd said that the guy -- Archie -- will only be around to do the things David doesn't bother to do even when he's happily productive, like cooking real food and doing the laundry and answering his calls when David's holed up in his studio, blind and deaf to the outside world. Archie's been vetted by the most reputable employment agency in the entire city, and Brooke had even had her own people comb through his records just in case. He'll be good for you, she'd promised, full of the boundless optimism that characterizes her. 

Because David's still tired and woozy from his last all-nighter, and because Brooke has been his agent long enough to know which strings to pull, he'd finally agreed to have Archie stay until he finishes his pieces for his next exhibition.

David sits heavily on his drawing stool, rubbing his temples to stave off an impending migraine. Nine hours of sleep aren't even close to being enough to force him to process the entire situation like he normally does.

*

When the first tentative knock comes on his door, he mistakes it for his headache trying to do his skull in. It takes the knocks becoming progressively louder for him to snap out of his daze long enough to say, "Yeah? Come in!"

The guy's head peeks in from what looks like the tiniest possible opening between the door and the doorway, and he's very tentative when he says, "Um, I'm going down to the grocery to buy some stuff for lunch? Any requests?"

David knows he should turn up the charm, make an effort to be nice, because he's more than capable of making people feel awesome and what the hell, the guy's going to be with him for a while and it won't hurt to put out the welcome mat, right?

But what comes out of his mouth is, "Coffee. Preferably not made by you. I'll drink Starbucks before I ever have to touch your coffee again," and David turns away before he has to see what the guy's response is. 

*

David eats lunch in his studio alone. There's a huge mug of coffee on the tray the guy hands to David, his eyes carefully averted.

When David pops off the lid and gingerly takes a sip, he's a little surprised when he notices that it's exactly the kind of coffee he likes from his favorite café down the street from his building. Huh.


End file.
